ANA finds second 787 cell charger with glitch

ANA Holdings Inc., the biggest user of Boeing Co. 787s, will send its second battery charger in two months to supplier Thales SA after a message signaled a problem during a maintenance check.

The airline changed the battery during maintenance on Nov. 16 and no flights were canceled or delayed, Ryosei Nomura, a spokesman at ANA, said Monday.

Boeing 787 Dreamliners were grounded worldwide earlier this year after batteries made by GS Yuasa Corp. melted on two planes. The Chicago-based airplane maker made changes to the battery and charger, built by a unit of Meggitt PLC, before flights were cleared to restart.

Japan Airlines Co. earlier this month said it would send a 787 battery charger to Thales after it found no problem with a battery in the plane following a warning light during a Helsinki-to-Narita flight. ANA sent a battery charger for checks in September, after replacing it and finding no problems following a low-battery warning.

U.S. investigators said in January that they found no evidence of flaws in the Securaplane Technologies Inc.-made battery charger after probing it as a possible cause of a fire aboard a Japan Airlines 787 in Boston earlier that month.

Thales supplies the unit that includes the battery and charger to Boeing.

The grounding of the 787 fleet pared ANA’s sales by ¥8 billion in the quarter ended in June. JAL, the world’s second-largest operator of 787s, said the grounding of its Dreamliners cut sales by ¥4.8 billion in the same period.